Architecturetalk

  Katerra Project Delivery CREDIT: Katerra Katerra is a new global leader in innovation and efficiency in construction project delivery. Design Director Craig Curtis, FAIA, shares eye-opening insights as a member of the Executive Team. Katerra is challenging conventions to deliver successful, sustainable, and innovative projects on par with Ikea, Apple and Tesla in supply chain and smart sourcing, construction and beautiful design. Through its commitment to Research and Development and environmental responsibility, Katerra aims to completely disrupt the design and construction industry, and has just received $865 million in new funding! https://katerra.com/

B.V. Doshi's Amdavad ni Gufa underground art gallery in Ahmedabad, IndiaCREDIT Vaishal Dalal, WikiCommons At age 90, Balkrishna Vithaldas (B.V.) Doshi's journey in architecture has spanned 70 years, starting from Indian independence in 1947, to the vicissitudes of postmodernism and globalization. Doshi's voice is a touchstone is global and Indian modernism. Conversation topics include his reflection on life and creativity, his 'favorite' projects, the legacy of Nehruvian modernization, and architectural pedagogy in India today. 

Tom Avermaete, professor of architecture at Delft University of Technology, discusses his GAHTC module, co-authored with Michelangelo Sabatino, on the historiography of mid-century modernism. Entitled "The Global Turn" the six lectures of their module articulate an alternative history of modernism as a network of collaborations cultivated in the context of the decolonizing world. Discussion topics include (post)colonial modernism, multi-layered collaborations, migration and housing, modernism and neoliberalism, Chandigarh, Casablanca and the 'commons' in the city.

Maristella Casciato, Senior Curator Architecture at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, discusses the life and legacy of Pierre Jeanneret, the Chief Architect of Chandigarh, India, and cousin, collaborator, confidant to Le Corbusier. Discussion topics include the legacy of his in-famous furniture,  Charlotte Perriand, and the special relationships he developed with India and the Indian architects and planners.

   Jeff Hou and Manish Chalana, Professors of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, discuss the 'mess' that makes the vitality of the contemporary Asian city, and the lessons one might draw form that in thinking about the future of a city like Seattle. Discussion topics include: Event-city, Mekong Railway Market, slum porn, filmic narratives and racial segregation.

Catharina Manchanda, the Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Seattle Art Museum, discusses the complexities of art curation as a social, cultural, aesthetic and spatial practise, both in the local and global contexts. Topics include: exhibition design, Seattle art culture, design as staging, the impact of the digital, and building facades as art canvas.

 Architects from Niger and Iran, Mariam Kamara and Yasaman Esmaili, discuss their award-winning work, the challenges of practicing globally, and the difficulties and rewards of learning to translate across languages and cultures via architecture. Topics include: feminism and architecture, Islam in the world, international practice, and the non-Western roots of the modernist aesthetic.

Seattle based fashion designer and performance artist with a background in industrial design, Anna Telcs discusses our relationship to clothes, and the rituals of dressing, as modalities of expressing our selves, our bodies and our place in the world. Discussion topics include donning church dresses, uniforms, and the male body.

Ayad Rahmani is a licensed architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at Washington State University who writes on a diverse array of topics ranging from the Islamic city to Frank Lloyd Wright to Dubai today. In this episode we try and connect the dots that link his diverse interests. Discussion topics include: publicity and privacy in the Islamic city, Wright’s Broadacre plan, ruralization and food security, and, migration and the search for roots via architecture. 

Cornell University’s Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History, Dominick LaCapra discusses the constitutive role of transference in our relationship to history, historiography, animals and architecture. We discuss transference’s relationship with empathy and connecting with Others, and when it ‘crosses the line’ and becomes pathological. Topics include the architecture of Auschwitz, the skyscraper versus adobe, and the possibility of a non-anthropocentric ecological future.

Carla Keyvanian, Associate Professor of Architecture at Auburn University, talks about her module for GAHTC that looks at the ‘Medieval’ architecture as a product of the complex cultural crossroads of the Mediterranean, that includes Islamic, African and diverse Christian forces, rather than just a ‘Romanesque’ evolution. Topics include Byzantium, Armenia, Umayyads, and Córdoba. We also discuss the Crusades and their abiding influence on contemporary conflicts.

Cassie Blair, JoAnn Hindmarsh Wilcox and Tim Richey are part of the committee putting on the 2017 Seattle AIA awards. We discuss trends in the local architecture and talk about how this fast‐growing city can serve its residents. Topics include: migration, diversity, regionalism, densification, risk‐taking and the pains of a growing city.

Columbia University’s Jorge Otero‐Pailos is a prolific architect, artist, educator and preservationist. He questions the invisibility of preservation and what an act of restoration is, looking closely at what is lost when for example buildings are cleaned. Topics discussed include preservation as memory, future and how it is, or isn’t, ‘overtaking us’.

MIT Professor Mark Jarzombek discusses his GAHTC module on the Architecture of First Societies, establishing the importance of thinking architecture beyond established canons based on cities and technology. Instead he argues the origins of architecture in the ‘social package’ and in the representational networks of ‘modeling’.